Meet Marumo Marumo: from finding cash-in-cleaning to creating change through The CEO SleepOut™
In a country as remarkable as ours, there is no shortage of inspirational, tenacious people set on realising change through entrepreneurship. The Sun International CEO SleepOut™ is a fantastic showcase of such people, such as 31-year-old business leader, Marumo Marumo.
CEO of Maru Corporation, Marumo Marumo will be participating in The Sun International CEO SleepOut™ for the first time this year: “I’m excited to be part of The CEO SleepOut™. It’s something that’s very close to my heart - over the past 8 years that I have been in business, I have been involved in initiatives and different programs that give back to the less fortunate, so I am ecstatic to be part of The CEO SleepOut™ because it is one of the high impact ones, globally.”
Marumo believes he is a born entrepreneur - he’s always made a plan from selling sweets for pocket money while still at primary school to starting his first business as a 22-year-old civil engineering student in Pretoria. A native of QwaQwa in the Free State, Marumo first noticed a business opportunity when he saw the state that many students would leave their tiny apartments in, upon moving out. This lead to the formation of Mola-Maru in 2006 with a friend of his and they serviced reliable cleaning services to letting agents and sales companies.
Marumo says he worked 12-16 hours a day, seven days a week at the time to ensure that he delivered on what he promised. Starting off with using taxis for transporting their cleaning equipment, the business has since grown to employ 22 full-time and 9 part-time workers.